Laura Nnamdi: A Letter to My Friend About My Fear of Death

Dear Remi,

Now playing “See you again” by Wiz Khalifa ft Charlie Puth.

What do you think about death? When I speak about dying, I talk about it like what it is: a normal course of life. My loved ones flinch, cringe and wince when I speak about death without fear. I can see how it unsettles them in their eyes: that quiet plea for me to stop, to switch the subject, to talk about lighter things. As if not speaking about death will stop it from coming. As if silence is safety.

But that fear died in 2020, during the EndSARS protests. God took it away. In the 8 months I stayed offline, when the world went quiet and chaos roared in the streets of Lagos, God took the fear from me—stripped it away gently. I battled the fear of death.

However, discussing death is still not easy. It hurts. Whenever the news reports about another person affected in Nigeria, whether from a plane crash or an unfortunate maritime incident, it pains deeply. Almost too much. Sometimes my stomach cannot contain the pain, and so it spills. It shares it with every fibre of my being. I feel the pain of the loss of a stranger everywhere in me. I mourn people I have never met. I cry for names I do not know. 

I carry it in my bones as a heaviness I did not ask for. It sits in my throat, refusing to be swallowed. Grief is strange that way. It finds you, even when the name of the dead is unfamiliar. What do they call people like us? I think I am just as compassionate as my Lord. After all, he also wept at death. 

What would happen if it were a family member? A close friend? An acquaintance? I understand that pain, having experienced it myself when I lost two aunts a few years ago. It hurt deeply. I can still remember the moment my brother told me that Aunty Victorine had passed away. The news hit me so hard that my legs gave way, and I fell to the floor. It felt as though not just my body collapsed, but my spirit did too. I went through a deep period of grief, and I never want to experience the loss of a loved one again.

I have one prayer: I have endured the struggles of being an average Nigerian in typical Nigeria, and that alone has brought enough pain. I do not wish to transition in a painful manner.

Wherever I go, I understand what awaits me. I would prefer to find eternal peace from my deathbed, surrounded by love and family. I do not want to be forgotten at the bottom of the sea or have my body parts scattered across a field due to violence. I do not want to be mangled in an accident just because a civil servant deemed a rickety bus safe for the road.

I want to be remembered gently, without the sharp punctuation of tragedy. I hope to close my eyes slowly, feeling the sun on my skin and hearing my loved ones whispering prayers around me. I do not want to become just another cautionary tale or a trending topic of loss. I don’t think I’m asking for much—only for peace and softness. Remi, do you fear death?

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